60's Rock music and the "Hippie" movement went through a similar evolution. A minority of it's fans initially saw it as a way to make a political statement, an anti-establishment tool used to stick it to the man. The majority of it's fans (and artists) just wanted to get high, party and get some of that free love. Post Woodstock the politicos lamented the capitalist takeover of what they dubbed "Corporate Rock". Similar articles were written by folks whose political ideals far outweighed their passion for music as strictly entertainment. Many of those folks, my peers, are now very successful capitalists.
The biggest difference is with Rap the politicos seem to be living vicariously through a different race and culture than their own, making the criticisms, or even observations, seem very self serving, selfish and possibly disconnected.
The biggest difference is with Rap the politicos seem to be living vicariously through a different race and culture than their own, making the criticisms, or even observations, seem very self serving, selfish and possibly disconnected.
^^^^^
THIS
(especially when coupled with unnecessary verbosity serving to veil and exclude rebuttal from the actual participants)
The biggest difference is with Rap the politicos seem to be living vicariously through a different race and culture than their own, making the criticisms, or even observations, seem very self serving, selfish and possibly disconnected.
^^^^^
THIS
(especially when coupled with unnecessary verbosity serving to veil and exclude rebuttal from the actual participants)
No offense to the author but after reading the rest of that blog there is a common theme in all of his writing of "I had a tough life, I didn't do well in school". So much so that his verbose writing style comes across as an attempt to prove his intellectual standing rather than conveying a message to those with a similar droput/street smart background.
It is no great feat in taking a simple concept and presenting it in overly complicated terms.
It is a real skill to take a complicated concept and present it in accurate but simple terms.
Bam's treatise on the state of hip-hop = :face_melt: :face_melt: :face_melt: :face_melt: :face_melt:
I've been loving the Rotate Stock site for a while. I'm admittedly biased because my friends write for it, but what makes them my friends -- insightful, funny, engaged, provactive -- also makes for a great website.
I liked the piece on rap, but my favorite part was the comparison of Wahad and Omar from the Wire. Omar isn't a real revolutionary, which, as Bam points out, is the very reason that he can be a favorite of poets and presidents alike. Like the honey badger, Omar doesn't give a fuck. Dhoruba bin Wahad gives very much a fuck, which keeps him on the edges.
Harvaic's posting of youtube videos from rap artists that he is currently championing as that real shitt only re-emphasizes one of the article's main points -- unless you participate in the charade, you won't make a wrinkle in contemporary rap. You can still make music, and you can still have your fans, but it all exists outside of the dominant discourse. Maybe one of those cracks in the discourse will lead the way to the light of freedom, or maybe that light is just an oncoming train. As Debarge has taught us, "Time will reveal."
Hang in there guys. I hope this thing goes to ten pages.
None of the videos I posted give a fuck about a Marxist perspective or someone ascribing some political interpretation to them and they clearly carry more revolutionary power than a million after-the-fact, trying-way-too-hard-to-be-over-complicated essays ever could..
I will check them out as I haven't heard much rap that I'd call revolutionary for a long while.
I listened to them. Putting aside my own personal bias about beats, teh raps weren't revolutionary to my ears. I can understand that there's nothing wrong with liking them if you're into those raps though.
the subjective abstracts that permeate most linguistic critique (both implied and expressed) have to account for some sort of ironic conjecture; but can, in some thematic dissertations, be the most efficient means to illustrate superfluous execution of verbiage and it's inability to convey succinctness.
Doubtful. But it got me back, so anything's possible.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
Duderonomy said:
teh raps weren't revolutionary to my ears.
Here's the thing, though - you don't have to spout revolutionary rhetoric to be revolutionary. Sometimes, simply speaking in your own voice can be a revolutionary act.
Here's the thing, though - you don't have to spout revolutionary rhetoric to be revolutionary. Sometimes, simply speaking in your own voice can be a revolutionary act.
Yeah, I wasn't implying that, just that I hadn't heard anything impressively new or different. The vid with the guy sat on the couch reading his raps from a sheet was at least honest in it's presentation. Content for all of the vids that Harv poasted didn't cover any themes or styles I haven't heard before I suppose. Nothing wrong with that, but I imagine that Bambouche could argue that his crit isn't answered by any of them.
Lil B is different. Weird as f*ck, but at least different.
Here's the thing, though - you don't have to spout revolutionary rhetoric to be revolutionary. Sometimes, simply speaking in your own voice can be a revolutionary act.
Yeah, I wasn't implying that, just that I hadn't heard anything impressively new or different. The vid with the guy sat on the couch reading his raps from a sheet was at least honest in it's presentation. Content for all of the vids that Harv poasted didn't cover any themes or styles I haven't heard before I suppose. Nothing wrong with that, but I imagine that Bambouche could argue that his crit isn't answered by any of them.
Lil B is different. Weird as f*ck, but at least different.
I thought it had already been agreed on that Lil B was just the rap equivalent of the Stray Cats?
One thing I think Harvey's videos touch on and I don't recall being covered in Bam's article (though to be honest I read it first thing in the morning and I don't think it all managed the transition from my eyes to my brain) is that these days it really depends on what avenue of rap you're following. Bambouche's article focused a lot of words on Odd Future and a fair few on Lil B but really, outside of a quite specific demographic, these are by no means the biggest artists in rap music at the moment whether you're judging it on popularity, sales, or influence. They just happen to be the branch of rap that people like talking about most in the media.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Wow, thank you, Doc. Revolutionary doesn't have to be related to Lenin. Plus I didn't necessarily say the raps I posted were revolutionary per se. I said that they packed revolutionary power. With Cal Wayne, he's freely putting himself at risk, willing to do whatever it takes, to get ahead in life...on his own terms. With Gerald G, he's willing to sell his soul to the devil in order to give his people a better life. With Esbe, well it was the Rage Against the Machine sample that made me post it, but the verse just comes across as powerful on the this-is-me-and-I-don't-give-a-fuck tip. Overall point being, we can't so simply just try to fit today's rap into the categories of the past. And just because someone embraces the capitalism that surrounds them to a certain degree doesn't make them a sell-out or whatever negative connotations a socialist would levy at them.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
Again, Harv, I personally didn't take any of that from what Bam wrote, although I realise other folks are going to see it differently - whether that involves fairly rigid and literal interpretations of what the word "revolutionary" means or not.
I don't quite understand how and why some of you are reading this as yet another "hip-hop is dead" piece either. For me, it's far more critical of the structure that rap music operates within than it is of rap music itself. And did anyone notice that there's a lot of questions being asked in that piece? Not all rhetorical questions, either. Hardly the mark of someone who's trying to tell another someone how to think, or who's saying this is this, and that used to be this but now it's that which makes all this not all that, and so on.
And yeah, we can't all be pithy and concise. Boo hoo. Call the fucking cops.
And to return briefly to your earlier point about the industry, Harv, you made the classic error of assuming that the record industry is the music industry - which was never entirely the case, as any party promoter, program director, club DJ or music supervisor would surely tell you.
why does rap have to be revolutionary to be rap? will someone please Foucault me?
This whole argument is ridiculous.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
It doesn't have to be explicitly revolutionary in any kind of flag-waving/Che Guevara's Little Red Book/workers-control-the-means-of-production way - sometimes it just is. Rap's entire history is built upon being revolutionary without even thinking about it/realising it.
Sometimes, simply speaking in your own voice can be a revolutionary act.
I question, though, whether this is as true in 2011 as it might have once been. Speaking frankly and honestly about one's experience is of course still valid, but in these days of full exposure and unlimited expression, I think it takes more to be "revolutionary." Or at least it should.
Moreover (and this is not necessarily directed at you, Doc), as I've said before, I feel like music nerds (c'est moi) as a whole like to consider themselves truth-seekers and excavators and Lone Seers Of The Real, and will ninenty-nine times out of a hundred pass up something that raises its fist and waves its "REVOLUTIONARY" banner in favor of some dude whose script (sometimes self-written, sometimes not) is "Hey, I'm just speaking on my life," a dude who said music nerds can then hold up to The Unknowing and say, "But can't you see--he's revolutionary!"
In Chicago, some of the homeless folks sell this newspaper called Streetwise; it costs a dollar, of which the homeless vendors get to keep something like eighty-five cents, the idea being that they get more benefit from earning eighty-five cents than they would from being given a dollar. Anyway, I routinely see folks pass up a homeless dude who's hustling to sell his papers and instead give their buck to a regular panhandler standing just a few feet away.
In an oblique way, that kind of transaction reminds me very much of this particular lobe of the music-nerd mindset--"the deliberate artist who is insisting on their own meaning is almost certainly less authentic than the unassuming artist whose meaning I, the savvy listener, must ferret out"--and makes me similarly uneasy in my own occasional complicity.
from an anti-capitalist perspective, surely it went wrong from the moment that sylvia robinson went to get a pizza right?
i quote from soulstrut's ODub on this very topic -
"There's this idea that hip-hop has to have street credibility, yet the first big hip-hop song was an inauthentic fabrication. It's not like the guys involved were the 'real' hip-hop icons of the era, like Grandmaster Flash or Lovebug Starski. So it's a pretty impressive fabrication, lightning in a bottle."
i wonder if any of this relates to how all i read on twitter when "otis" dropped was "oh for fucksakes, here we go again, two millionaires going on about how rich they are in the midst of the worst financial crisis in the history of the united states." would otis be a better song if jay and kanye debated the impending welfare cuts. i wonder.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
For 99.99% of artists today, it's a create your own industry situation. The structure within rap operates, at least how we used to understand it, no longer exists. Artists give away their music for free in hopes of having it land them paying gigs, including shows and licensing arrangements. But whereas there used to be set short cuts to these ends, it's now more than ever up to personal hustle. Therefore with that now being the state of things, we're seeing a resurgence in artists going ahead and being themselves in full, doing and saying whatever they want through their music. And that should not only be recognized by current fans of rap, but celebrated and surely not denigrated by running it through some antiquated, inapplicable Marxist analysis.
James, to extend your excellent analogy, imagine if said panhandler (who is favored by the passerby) was really a plant - not really homeless just particularly good at playing ones perceived image of worthy homeless dude - and on salary from a bigger corp who takes a cut.
That pretty much explains the current music industry.
It's more the bloggers and critics who fall for the rouse and then pay themselves on the back publicly.
we're seeing a resurgence in artists going ahead and being themselves in full, doing and saying whatever they want through their music. And that should not only be recognized by current fans of rap, but celebrated
But even if that is worth recognizing and celebrating and whatever else (honestly, "being yourself" seems like a pretty low bar for this day and age, but I'll play along), I think the point--or one point, anyway--is that "being themselves" and "doing and saying whatever they want" is not worth being called "revolutionary," and that the ever-increasing mass of artists doing just/only that is not necessarily gonna move shit forward.
Now, whether one thinks that "being revolutionary" or "moving shit forward" is the job of music (I myself do not) is of course a whole other question, but just as it rankles me to hear someone refer to some fucking television commercial or whatever as "poetry," it rankles me to hear baseline expression of personal experience characterized as "revolutionary." Expressing fully and being yourself and all that, that shit is Art 101--dudes do not get extra points for that, especially in 2011. And using that kind of puffery to let Things You Like off the hook while at the same time taking Bambouche to task for an overinflated argument strikes me as hypocritical.
Comments
The biggest difference is with Rap the politicos seem to be living vicariously through a different race and culture than their own, making the criticisms, or even observations, seem very self serving, selfish and possibly disconnected.
THIS
(especially when coupled with unnecessary verbosity serving to veil and exclude rebuttal from the actual participants)
No offense to the author but after reading the rest of that blog there is a common theme in all of his writing of "I had a tough life, I didn't do well in school". So much so that his verbose writing style comes across as an attempt to prove his intellectual standing rather than conveying a message to those with a similar droput/street smart background.
It is no great feat in taking a simple concept and presenting it in overly complicated terms.
It is a real skill to take a complicated concept and present it in accurate but simple terms.
b. Yeah I'm so mad I'm throwing my Boots Riley frostrap away.
c. Could you please expound endlessly on what you just said?
d. I'm so big on capitalism, CAPSLOCK FROM NOW ON!
e. Screw wouldn't fuck with it.
I've been loving the Rotate Stock site for a while. I'm admittedly biased because my friends write for it, but what makes them my friends -- insightful, funny, engaged, provactive -- also makes for a great website.
I liked the piece on rap, but my favorite part was the comparison of Wahad and Omar from the Wire. Omar isn't a real revolutionary, which, as Bam points out, is the very reason that he can be a favorite of poets and presidents alike. Like the honey badger, Omar doesn't give a fuck. Dhoruba bin Wahad gives very much a fuck, which keeps him on the edges.
Harvaic's posting of youtube videos from rap artists that he is currently championing as that real shitt only re-emphasizes one of the article's main points -- unless you participate in the charade, you won't make a wrinkle in contemporary rap. You can still make music, and you can still have your fans, but it all exists outside of the dominant discourse. Maybe one of those cracks in the discourse will lead the way to the light of freedom, or maybe that light is just an oncoming train. As Debarge has taught us, "Time will reveal."
Hang in there guys. I hope this thing goes to ten pages.
Peace,
JRoot
SEMI-SERIOUS GREIL MARCUS MOVES
- Einstein
Dude turned theoretical physics on it's head in 48 pages. The E=mc?? bit was over in 2 pages.
Sine Stein
I listened to them. Putting aside my own personal bias about beats, teh raps weren't revolutionary to my ears. I can understand that there's nothing wrong with liking them if you're into those raps though.
Will this thread tempt Bambouche back?
Doubtful. But it got me back, so anything's possible.
Here's the thing, though - you don't have to spout revolutionary rhetoric to be revolutionary. Sometimes, simply speaking in your own voice can be a revolutionary act.
Yeah, I wasn't implying that, just that I hadn't heard anything impressively new or different. The vid with the guy sat on the couch reading his raps from a sheet was at least honest in it's presentation. Content for all of the vids that Harv poasted didn't cover any themes or styles I haven't heard before I suppose. Nothing wrong with that, but I imagine that Bambouche could argue that his crit isn't answered by any of them.
Lil B is different. Weird as f*ck, but at least different.
I thought it had already been agreed on that Lil B was just the rap equivalent of the Stray Cats?
One thing I think Harvey's videos touch on and I don't recall being covered in Bam's article (though to be honest I read it first thing in the morning and I don't think it all managed the transition from my eyes to my brain) is that these days it really depends on what avenue of rap you're following. Bambouche's article focused a lot of words on Odd Future and a fair few on Lil B but really, outside of a quite specific demographic, these are by no means the biggest artists in rap music at the moment whether you're judging it on popularity, sales, or influence. They just happen to be the branch of rap that people like talking about most in the media.
I don't quite understand how and why some of you are reading this as yet another "hip-hop is dead" piece either. For me, it's far more critical of the structure that rap music operates within than it is of rap music itself. And did anyone notice that there's a lot of questions being asked in that piece? Not all rhetorical questions, either. Hardly the mark of someone who's trying to tell another someone how to think, or who's saying this is this, and that used to be this but now it's that which makes all this not all that, and so on.
And yeah, we can't all be pithy and concise. Boo hoo. Call the fucking cops.
And to return briefly to your earlier point about the industry, Harv, you made the classic error of assuming that the record industry is the music industry - which was never entirely the case, as any party promoter, program director, club DJ or music supervisor would surely tell you.
This whole argument is ridiculous.
I find this the biggest hole in the whole article.
Bottom line is:
are you :feelin_it:
urgency > 'revolutionary'
Moreover (and this is not necessarily directed at you, Doc), as I've said before, I feel like music nerds (c'est moi) as a whole like to consider themselves truth-seekers and excavators and Lone Seers Of The Real, and will ninenty-nine times out of a hundred pass up something that raises its fist and waves its "REVOLUTIONARY" banner in favor of some dude whose script (sometimes self-written, sometimes not) is "Hey, I'm just speaking on my life," a dude who said music nerds can then hold up to The Unknowing and say, "But can't you see--he's revolutionary!"
In Chicago, some of the homeless folks sell this newspaper called Streetwise; it costs a dollar, of which the homeless vendors get to keep something like eighty-five cents, the idea being that they get more benefit from earning eighty-five cents than they would from being given a dollar. Anyway, I routinely see folks pass up a homeless dude who's hustling to sell his papers and instead give their buck to a regular panhandler standing just a few feet away.
In an oblique way, that kind of transaction reminds me very much of this particular lobe of the music-nerd mindset--"the deliberate artist who is insisting on their own meaning is almost certainly less authentic than the unassuming artist whose meaning I, the savvy listener, must ferret out"--and makes me similarly uneasy in my own occasional complicity.
i quote from soulstrut's ODub on this very topic -
"There's this idea that hip-hop has to have street credibility, yet the first big hip-hop song was an inauthentic fabrication. It's not like the guys involved were the 'real' hip-hop icons of the era, like Grandmaster Flash or Lovebug Starski. So it's a pretty impressive fabrication, lightning in a bottle."
i wonder if any of this relates to how all i read on twitter when "otis" dropped was "oh for fucksakes, here we go again, two millionaires going on about how rich they are in the midst of the worst financial crisis in the history of the united states." would otis be a better song if jay and kanye debated the impending welfare cuts. i wonder.
That pretty much explains the current music industry.
It's more the bloggers and critics who fall for the rouse and then pay themselves on the back publicly.
Now, whether one thinks that "being revolutionary" or "moving shit forward" is the job of music (I myself do not) is of course a whole other question, but just as it rankles me to hear someone refer to some fucking television commercial or whatever as "poetry," it rankles me to hear baseline expression of personal experience characterized as "revolutionary." Expressing fully and being yourself and all that, that shit is Art 101--dudes do not get extra points for that, especially in 2011. And using that kind of puffery to let Things You Like off the hook while at the same time taking Bambouche to task for an overinflated argument strikes me as hypocritical.